The present invention is directed to a printed circuit board arrangement having a fixed portion and a flexible layer arrangement containing at least one electrically conductive layer with a large number of conductor tracks lying next to one another and surrounded by electrically isolating layers. The flexible layer arrangement is firmly connected in portions to a fixed portion with at least one printed circuit board suitable for accommodating a component. The fixed portion has at least a clearance or opening extending as far as the conductor tracks.
The invention relates, in particular, to printed circuit board arrangements which are suitable for the connection of a detector module of an X-ray computer tomograph to downstream evaluation electronics.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,856,913, whose disclosure is incorporated herein by reference thereto and which claims priority from German 196 17 055, discloses a generic type of a printed circuit board arrangement. This known printed circuit board arrangement is not suitable for producing a large number of contacts in a very confined space. The conventional bonding method for contacting cannot be used in the case of a printed circuit board arrangement of this type.
According to prior art, there are also known printed circuit board arrangements in which two fixed portions are movably connected to each other by means of a flexible portion. Such printed circuit board arrangements are used, for example, for constructing detector modules for X-ray computer tomographs. In this case, a photodiode array is accommodated on one fixed portion. The individual photodiodes of the photodiode array are connected via conductor tracks accommodated in the flexible portion to a connector mounted on the other fixed portion. The connector, in turn, serves for connecting the detector module to downstream digitizing electronics.
The flexible portion usually comprises a plurality of layers. In this case, at least one of the layers comprises a large number of conductor tracks lying next to one another, which tracks are surrounded by an electrically isolating layer. This layer may be covered on both sides in a manner of a sandwich structure by electrically conducting shielding layers which, in turn, are surrounded by an electrically isolating layer. For forming the fixed portions, the flexible layer structure described above is stiffened by printed circuit boards adhesively attached on its upper side or surface and/or on the underside or surface. Mounted on the printed circuit boards are the respective components. The terminals of these components are connected to the conductor tracks by means of plated through-holes which penetrate the printed circuit boards. Because of the relatively small width of the fixed portions, it is necessary, even in the case of a photodiode array having 16 photodiodes to apply a relatively elongated conductor track structure to the printed circuit board in order for a suitable sheet-like arrangement of the plated through-holes to be created. The provision of such an elongated conductor track structure is detrimental to the shielding.
Detector modules for modern X-ray computer tomographs with multiple row detectors require photodiode arrays with, for example 16×16 photodiodes. The production of 16 times the number of the conventional plated through-holes would require at least 16 times the surface area for the conductor track structure necessary for the connection of the plated through-holes to the terminals. A predetermined overall size of the detector module could no longer be maintained. What is more, such a large surface area of a conductor track structure permitting plated through-hole leads to considerable shielding problems.
UK Patent Application No. 2 183 406, which claims priority from the same U.S. Application as German 36 06 621, describes a flexible layer arrangement which is formed by a sequence of layers of electrically isolating and electrically conductive layers.
WO 83/03943 describes a method of producing a fixed printed circuit board arrangement for producing “bubble memories”. In this case, a layer arrangement comprising isolating and conductive layers is applied to a fixed substrate. A contacting link passes through the layer arrangement and reaches the surface of the printed circuit board. The known method does not allow a large number of contacts to be achieved in a very confined space.